RidgeRun Blog

We are rolling an updated OMAP35x Evaluation SDK! The highlights are:

• Based on latest PSP from TI (based on kernel 2.6.29)
• Support for OneNand and NAND Mistral EVMs
• Support for integration against latest DVSDK from TI.

As usual the Evaluation SDK is a great platform to evaluate how the RidgeRun SDK give you a better time to market by speeding up your development. The professional SDK from RidgeRun includes integration for GStreamer plugins, graphical environments for the target board, professional support from our engineers, development services, training, and much more.

You download the Evaluation SDK for OMAP35x from here.

Enjoy

Gstreamer, OMAP35x Gstreamer, OMAP35x

In case you have missed the buzz around the Touch Book, please take a look at the presentation video.

The summary is that is an OMAP35x based Netbook, heavily based on BeagleBoard, and running standard open source components. That provides very cool features like amazing battery life, but if you aren’t not a geek to get excited for that, there are some other nice things as well:

• Detachable screen from keyboard, making it a touch tablet
• Internal USB ports to avoid peripherals hanging around
• The screen have a magnetic part, allowing to dock into your refrigerator for example.
• 3D User interface.

I recall meeting Grégoire Gentil (founder of Always Innovating) during the last class we teach at ESC in Boston about 3D UIs. Of course at that point I didn’t know he was part of such a cool project . Seems like a smart guy, and I enjoyed the technical talk with him, so I’m looking forward for this product.

BeagleBoard, OMAP35x BeagleBoard, ESC, OMAP35x, OpenGL ES

Some time without posting (too much work).

Well, now it’s official. We have a active and supported community of people developing Gstreamer plugins for Texas Instruments System on Chips: Davinci family (Dm6446, DM6447, DM355, DM357) and OMAP (35x).

The project has been developed by Texas Instruments and is commercially supported by RidgeRun.

Currently it provides synchronized A/V for all the platforms, and image and video encoding on some of them. We are working on improvements to properly support seeking, fast forward, and reverse playback, as well making the plugins to properly integrate with playbin/decodebin (so they can be used in standard media players).

RidgeRun is providing support for it if you are using RidgeRun SDK (our favorite), MV environment (not so easy), and Beaglers favorite’s Angstrom (thanks to Koen and TI folks who worked along with us to demo it on ESC Silicon Valley).

A nice demo for beagleboard is provided by Koen of Big Bug Bunny running on the DSP with gstreamer TI plugins over a BeagleBoard.

Davinci, OMAP35x BeagleBoard, Davinci, DM355, DM6446, Gstreamer, OMAP35x

If you are attending the upcoming ESC, please come by and say hi. I will be speaking on Diego’s most excellent 3D user interface presentation which is a roll-up-your-sleeves and get dirty hands-on activity using a BeagleBoard. I will also be doing the same showing off the latest in GStreamer plug-ins developed especially for the TI daVinci/OMAP chips. GStreamer makes it easy to add audio and video to your embedded product and with the daVinci/OMAP specific plug-in, it is lightning fast. Details at ECS website.

Todd

BeagleBoard, OMAP35x BeagleBoard, clutter, ESC, Gstreamer, OMAP35x, OpenGL ES

If you are involved, or would like to get started with embedded Linux development using BeagleBoard, and you happen to live or be visiting Costa Rica next week, don’t miss this session.

Next Thursday January 22th, Diego Dompe from RidgeRun will be giving a introductory session for members of the Costa Rica Linux User’s Group to the BeagleBoard project. The user group is composed by hobbies, EE and CS students from local universities. The class will be held at Lab #6 at Cenfotec facilities, at 6:30 p.m., but you can arrive early (from 6 p.m.) to play with the Rev C. board available.

The class is an introductory level talk for people getting interested in using BeagleBoard, and will cover the basics on the capabilities of the hardware (OMAP35x), and the software required to get started.

The class will be in spanish, but if you are english speaker you are welcome as well for the Q&A section. We will be posting the presentation in spanish later.

Si estás envuelto, o te gustaría empezar a desarrollar en Linux embedido usando la BeagleBoard, y vives o estás visitando Costa Rica la proxima semana, no te pierdas esta clase.

El próximo jueves 22 de enero, Diego Dompe de RidgeRun estará dando una clase introductoria para los miembros del grupo de usuarios de Linux de Costa Rica al proyecto BeagleBoard. El grupo de usuarios está compuesto por aficionados y estudiantes de ingenieria eléctrica y ingenieria en computación de las universidades locales. La clase será en el laboratorio #6 en las instalaciones de Cenfotec  a las 6:30 p.m., pero se puede llegar temprano (desde las 6 p.m.) para tener la oportunidad de usar la tarjeta Revision C que estará disponible.

La clase es de nivel introductorio para personas interesadas en usar BeagleBoard, y cubrirá la información básica sobre las capacidades del hardware (OMAP35x), y el software requerido para empezar a usar la tarjeta.

La clase será en español, pero anglo-parlantes son bienvenidos también. La presentación será publicada en por este medio posteriormente.

BeagleBoard, OMAP35x BeagleBoard, OMAP35x

Koen from the OpenEmbedded fame just posted this video on you tube, showing SGX integration with X server (using xf86-video-omapfb as far I understand). He shows also clutter-box2d working with it (eglx backend)!

This means you could use clutter eglx and get clutter graphics with your xserver… that’s a hole new world of possibilities for Linux user interfaces on MIDs or other devices target by the OMAP platform (like medical devices).

BeagleBoard, OMAP35x clutter, OMAP35x, OpenGL ES

Want a good starting point to develop in Davinci or OMAP processors?

The OMAP and DaVinci Software For Dummies book has arrived. Already order mine for review it. The table of contents shows a very good and friendly introduction to development on this platforms.

We have talked to many customers in the past that would find this sort of introductory text really useful to understand the basic architecture when working with this platforms. If you are starting your embedded product development  with Davinci or OMAP parts, don’t forget to check it out.

Davinci, OMAP35x Davinci, DM355, DM6446, OMAP35x

We have updated our free SDK for OMAP 35x EVM.

Currently TI offers a Linux SDK for the EVM with a couple of open source packages and no custom services. RidgeRun offers an SDK which integrates the same kernel provided by TI, more open source packages, and our build and deploy technology (including nice u-boot deploy system that automatizes the firmware installation). Even more important, RidgeRun offers support and services to integrate open source enabling technologies like gstreamer for media streaming and clutter for 3D UI.

The updated free SDK has the following new features:

• Updated to use the same kernel in TI Linux SDK 1.0.2
• Integration for the DVSDK (Beta 2): decode video and audio using the DSP, with TI evaluation codecs.
• Integration for the OMAP Graphics SDK (this one is to be released soon on the TI EVM updates site).

The DVKSDK and Graphics SDK integration requires people from downloading the software packages from TI’s update site. It allows to evaluate the SoC capabilities in codec and graphics performance, and to appreciate how the SDK can accelerate the software development with OMAP platforms. RidgeRun expertise allows the SDK to be easily customized for new hardware designs, and manufacturing deployment.

The professional SDK includes integration with clutter and integration for gstreamer with the new set of plugins from TI.

We will be updating our DM355 and Dm6446 free SDKs with similar features soon. The free OMAP35x SDK can be downloaded immediately from our download center.

OMAP35x Gstreamer, OMAP35x, OpenGL ES

A couple days ago I submitted the patch to clutter project to add generic Linux event driver support to the eglnative backend. This is useful when using clutter in OMAP35x based hardware with the EGL backend over framebuffer, and you want input from keypads, or something other than a tslib supported touch screen.

On other news on the OMAP35x graphics front, it seems like the graphics SDK is ready to be released by TI. Looking forward to all the amazing interfaces people will build with this.

PS: I also found out that Maemo 5 will be having an interface overhaul using clutter!

OMAP35x clutter, OMAP35x, OpenGL ES

Todd and I gave a couple of presentations at the Embedded System Conference 2008 (ESC) in Boston. Todd demoed gstreamer capabilities, and I talked about 3D user interfaces using clutter and OpenGL ES.

If you are interested you can find the whitepapers and presentations at http://beagleboard.org/demo/esc

BeagleBoard, OMAP35x BeagleBoard, clutter, ESC, Gstreamer, OMAP35x, OpenGL ES